War of posters and wall postings in Tamil Nadu

Chennai, Feb 24 (IANS) It is war of mocking advertisements from political parties in Tamil Nadu, with DMK making the first move with costly newspaper advertisements while the ruling AIADMK and PMK resorting to low-cost social media.

On Wednesday, DMK continued with its paper campaign with full page advertisement as a poster stating that companies like Nokia, Foxconn have shut down operations leaving over 75,000 people jobless.

DMK on Tuesday had issued front full page advertisement, asking the readers whether they have seen the chief minister in person than on television, banners and stickers.

While it had the first mover advantage, the AIADMK supporters soon gathered their arsenal and fired at DMK using the social media.

On day one, the end was in AIADMK’s favour while DMK had the advantage of first mover and surprise element.

While the two parties resorted to negative campaign-hurling charges against each other- PMK, on its part, asked the people whether they have seen it ruling the state while the people have seen AIADMK, DMK and Congress rules.

The PMK has its tag line `Change’ and `Progress’.

“The newspaper ads is a strategy of DMK to convey that the fight is only between AIADMK and DMK. They want to keep the state politics bi-polar in nature,” Ramu Manivannan, professor of political science at the University of Madras, told IANS.

According to him, DMK cannot question other parties as they did not rule the state.

“The DMK has adopted a negative approach instead of positive approach and has backfired in the social media. While the party had spent several crore in newspaper ads the AIADMK and PMK has responded through social media,” a communication professional not wanting to be quoted told IANS.

What is interesting now is that from the days of wall posters, the campaign media now includes wall postings-postings on the social media.

While the DMK’s campaign and AIADMK’s retort were welcomed by youth on the social media, the middle and older generation have an opposite take on campaign.

Meanwhile, the PMK had blocked media space three days prior to February 14 as it had slated to hold its conference on that day. However, the party postponed its conference to February 27 and its media campaign is expected to start anytime.